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The Vicious Cycle of Perfectionism and Depression

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If you’ve ever found yourself caught in the vicious cycle of perfectionism and depression, you are not alone. My article Depression and Your Messy House is the most read article on this blog in the past year. I’ve openly discussed my ongoing battle with perfectionism, but the truth is I’ve also had a lifelong battle with depression. It is not something I ever really feel comfortable sharing. Many of my good friends don’t even know, because I go into hiding during my toughest flare-ups, so I could never imagine sharing it in such a public way on the blog.

But hiding it is getting too hard lately. I mean, I stopped sending all emails to subscribers in the middle of the fall Love Home challenge, few of my planned blog posts in the last month actually got written, and the 2018 planner wasn’t released on schedule. There’s no real way to explain that in a rational way. And that’s just the obvious work stuff, there are countless phone calls I haven’t answered, texts and emails I haven’t responded to, because I just can’t. I just can’t. And honestly, I’m getting sick of hiding. Pretending is holding me back from what I’m really trying to do here. I want to help you.

All the work I do in my home on good days make the bad days better. I have ideas and experiences I think can help and it drives me to keep sharing. Life can be really tough, but we can be tougher.

Here’s my usual cycle? Does this fit you too?

Break the Cycle

When perfectionism feels wired into our very cores, how do we break out of the cycle?

In all honesty, I don’t think we escape it completely, but I think we can escape it sometimes and make it easier to get through other times. After all, depression isn’t a condition we can out-think (trust me, if there was a way, I would have thought myself out of it by now). For some of us, it is as much a part of us as our eye color. But there are things that can help, so let’s focus on that.

(Try to) Avoid All or Nothing

How often do we start a new project or a new phase with optimism and excitement, only to soon slide quickly to All or Nothing thinking.

We may not always be able to stop the cycle, but we can try to slow it down. When we understand the effects of our actions, we can help ourselves avoid some of the mental mess. Learning to look at your to do list and say to yourself “this is impossible” will help you. It may not stop your perfectionist brain from ever saying “it’s not really impossible, just hard, and I can do really hard things if I work endlessly and try really extra hard,” but maybe it can stop that inner perfectionist at least part of the time. For instance, if we can learn to recognize All or Nothing thinking, we can slow down our insatiable drive and avoid burning out so quickly.

(Read All or Nothing for more on working through that, but know this: the “ALL” is elusive.)

Lay Off The Guilt

Always be kinder than you feel, especially to yourself.

Perfectionists are masochistic in nature with insatiable drives to do better, be better. Not only do we push ourselves past healthy limits to reach our goals and set nearly impossible standards, we beat ourselves up when we don’t meet the impossible expectations. Since they were impossible to begin with, we’ve set ourselves up to fail from the beginning.

Train yourself to see to see the good you do. If you need to, make a list of every little thing you’ve done in a day. Write even the silly things, like put a band-aid on your child’s invisible wound, helped coworkers (or family) through personal drama, talked to your friend on the phone, walked the dog … everything. If you’re wasting a bunch of time, you’ll quickly be able to see where, but otherwise, you’ll see all the things you’re doing that matter.

Learning to appreciate the progress and embrace better over best is one of the most challenging things I’ve tried to do. But perfectionists love challenges, right?! So go ahead and challenge yourself to take it easy on yourself!

When Burnout Comes

Burnout is the hardest phase in the cycle, because by this time, we are so pulled into all of the trappings of our perfectionist thinking, that it can feel impossible to break the cycle at this point. But, if we don’t try, the next phase is the worst. We must prioritize taking care of ourselves and let go of even important things that aren’t THE most important things. If we can’t slow down, we’ll end up going from 60 mph to zero almost instantaneously without choice. Once we’ve completely burned out, there is literally nothing left to work with and all those things that were too important to let go of yesterday come crashing down anyway.

To have even a chance of breaking out of the cycle here, we must let go of something and we must take care of ourselves.

Lifting Ourselves Out of Depression

If you suffer from depression, you may know what pulls you out the most. For some it is medicine, for others, it is a forced break from avoidable demands. Honestly, If I knew an instant-trick to this, I’d be a zillionaire who found the cure to depression.

All I know is: do what you need to do, take the time you need to take, you are worth it. Depression is a dark place. Don’t make permanent decisions when you are in this phase. Often, during my flare-ups, I want to quit everything: quit blogging, quit all of my responsibilities, quit friendships/relationships, nothing feels off-limits from my desire to quit. I’ve realized by now that it is my brain looking for a quick fix to feel better, it is my will to survive grasping at straws, trying to figure out how to feel better. Taking a break is definitely the right thing, and quitting some things may be right in the end, but I don’t make decisions until I feel a little better.

Really, the best thing I’ve found that helps the sunshine come back sooner is taking care of myself. Trying to eat healthy food (I don’t mean starting fat-shaming diets, but more about thinking through my body getting the nourishment it needs), getting some sunshine, taking a walk, reading a good book, low-pressure socializing, and definitely getting some sleep. None of these things are instant cures, but they set the stage for feeling better.

That moment I start to see life a little clearly always feels like a miracle. Miracles happen and can happen for you. Whatever you do, just hold on … there will be another project/ event/ phase/ purpose coming soon that will re-ignite the perfectionist within you. There’s nothing like a good challenge to bring out the beast. And if that’s what it takes to get over the recent bout of depression, bring it on. 😉

(If this article helped you at all, help someone else and pass it on.)

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Be well, friends.

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MARY. <3 Thank you for your honest post about your struggles. SO many will identify. Blessings and prayers to you and everyone in your house as you come up for air. Sending you love, light, and permission to be and do whatever you need to do to FEEL and BE healthy – right now, and in the days/years to come. <3

Mary. I applaud you for being public. My husband went through major anxiety a few years back and it wasn’t until he started opening up about it that he was really helped. He was able to help so many others by not being ashamed of it. Please realize that it is a medical condition just as heart disease, a broken bone or the like. It’s just not on the outside to be seen. You can do hard things and learning how YOU need to deal with it is so freeing. Good for you. Take the time you need to get better. Life (and your customers) will still be there when you are. AND cheering you on. THANK YOU for this post and for EVERYTHING you do to help so many others all the time!

Thanks for always being there and understanding. You have been such a constant friend to me, even when I go into my hiding phase (which has been pretty steady for 2 years straight), you understand. Thank you, thank you.

Thanks for coming clean! For those of us who also fight with depression, knowing that you struggle gives us another ally in the fight. Now that we know, we can support you as well. The quotes you chose in your blog post are mostly unknown to me and caught me by surprise today. Thanks for sharing your hard stuff.
Karen

The first person I told that I had depression said, “Oh, good!” Not that she was glad I was sick, but rather, now I could fully understand HER depression. It’s been true for me. People can be kind, loving, and helpful. But they don’t really understand unless they have been there. I hope your words help others to understand, if only a bit, that dang vicious cycle. Wishing you all the best.

Hi Mary! I’m so sorry to hear of your struggles lately. I’m sure you won’t remember me, but I found your Declutter Challenge a couple of years back. I had just lost my mom after a long illness and it was winter. I had fallen into a “funk” which I am at times prone to do anyway, and your challenge helped me to focus and move forward. I’m forever grateful for you and your challenge coming along when I needed it. I’m thinking and praying for you! Looking forward to joining you and your next Declutter Challenge. Take care!

Your openness is appreciated. I especially struggle with the intense feeling of being overwhelmed beyond endurance when the days get shorter and darker. Thanks to the book The Mood Cure, I easily recognized myself as a person who tends to be deficient in an amino acid called GABA. I always keep some on hand, along with glycine to carry the GABA into the brain. It’s amazing what a difference it can make! Folks can go to the website to take a quick simple quiz to see if their particular mood disorder can be helped with particular simple nutritional supplements without having to resort to dangerous medications.

Mary, you will never really know how many people you have helped today…but they will know. Blessings as you move through this cycle. So many of us understand and rejoice when the sun comes out again. Be gentle on yourself. Rest and replenish.

Mary, unfortunately I can totally relate. I stopped taking meds over the summer because I didn’t feel they were working. I thought I could handle it on my own, but I withdrew more and more. Especially since both of my kids were heading off to college in August . Before they had to leave, my family had to baker act me. Me… really? That’s all I kept thinking was how did I let it get that far? Fast forward, and I’m on a different medication and it’s like night and day. Not perfect but much better. I hope you find your way out.

Thanks for sharing. There are many of us in this fight. I suffer from depression and my husband was just diagnosed as bi-polar and we both have hefty doses of perfectionism. It can be a rough ride sometimes, but with patience we seem to come out better in the end. Sharing this will only make you stronger.

Mary, thank you for being brave enough to be open. I suffered from depression for many years but didn’t realize what it was. (I now call myself a “recovering perfectionist.”) Fortunately for me, it didn’t require medication and, for more than 20 years, I’ve had only a twinge of seasonal gloominess. I’m so blessed that it hasn’t had a stranglehold on me in over 2 decades, and I feel for those for whom it is an ongoing struggle.

I want to share a book that made all the difference to me, but I want to state first that I’m NOT saying it’s the cure for everything, and I’m NOT saying medication (even though I didn’t need it) isn’t helpful for many people. I believe medicine can be a lifesaver.

What it took for me was my pastor’s wife reaching out (because she had overcome major depression) and going through the book and workbook with me every Tuesday for about 10 weeks. It opened my eyes to a lot of things about myself. The book required a lot of self-examination and perseverance. Why I was able to overcome depression (with God’s help) without more intense intervention, I don’t know. I think that may be rare.

That books sounds amazing, I’ll definitely be looking into that more. One thing is for sure, I am sick of feeling this way. I pray daily for the strength to even do the things I need to do to feel better. It really is a struggle, but opening up about it has been so healing these past 10 days. Encouragement like yours really validates filling opening up about it. Thanks so much, Suzy.

Yes! Speak it out! And I’m here with a hearty ‘me too!’ Depression and anxiety are longtime passengers on my life journey – so I work at keeping them in the backseat and stopping them from taking over the radio… 😉 Thankful for your voice, grateful for your honesty, hopeful we’ll be able to sit down someday and swap war stories. Love you!

I love this post! So many of us deal with depression and we all need to talk about it more 🙂 its healing. To know we are in it together right 🙂
A big turning point for me was reading the book “Learned Optimism” by Martin Seligman. Even though I have always identified myself as an optimist this book taught me so many life changing coping skills. It didn’t make the depression go away but now I don’t get stuck in some of the mental traps that make it worse 🙂 good luck! Feel better soon!